Can chatbots help organizations drive digital transformation?

CHATBOTS are incredibly effective when it comes to managing communications with customers.

Businesses, especially in retail and hospitality, have invested significantly in building chatbots that leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) to provide customers with the best experience — on messaging platforms such as Facebook, WeChat, as well as WhatsApp.

However, companies are beginning to realize that chatbots are also great as internal tools to drive the digital transformation message home.

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together,” goes an old adage — which is why companies, especially the larger enterprises, aiming to accelerate their digital transformation, need to deploy chatbots for internal use. Here’s how they help:

# 1 | Gets everyone on the same page

Chatbots are incredibly effective when it comes to sharing a message with a large team.

However, while emails and videos on corporate social networks can do the same job — and quite effectively — the reality is that a dedicated chatbot can serve as the company’s digital transformation mascot.

The mascot can be updated with the company’s most recent digital transformation agenda and information about projects running concurrently across geographies.

Employees can then chat with the mascot about what is relevant to them, raise queries about projects that interest them, and connect with project managers if they have something to contribute.

# 2 | Reinforces the vision and mission

Digital transformation projects fail because people aren’t motivated enough and forget why they embarked on a project or adopted a certain agenda in the first place.

A digital transformation chatbot that serves as the company’s change mascot can be tasked with reminding change agents, also known as employees, about the vision and mission of the programs in a bid to reinvigorate and reinforce the importance of going digital.

Often, chatbots are also able to take in questions that arise in the minds of employees from time to time and feed them to the management team who can address them for the entire organization at once.

# 3 | Helps delegate effectively

Chatbots, whether serving as digital transformation mascots or not, have all the answers. However, they can be built to provide different teams with answers and responses relevant to them — and provide them with prompts that are suitable to them.

Using chatbots, managers working on multiple projects can delegate tasks to different groups based on spreadsheets and flowcharts tied to their project management software.

Of course, this means integrating the chatbot’s feed with other software in the company’s network, which also makes things more manageable and effective.